Have you ever looked in your fridge only to find mould on bread or that the strawberries have gone soft and mushy?
Yes, it’s happened to me too. Did you ever wonder what was happening to your food in the fridge? Join me for a meander into the magical world of mushrooms.
You have seen white or cream-coloured fibres in your fridge called hyphae, but the vegetative structure is called Mycelium. We will be more familiar with the fruiting body of Mycelium and mushrooms. Join us for a journey to discover the Mycelium and the magic of mushrooms.
Mycelium is fascinating; it was on earth way before humans, or indeed, any land life form, so to find out more about Mycelium, we need to take a journey back in time, so grab yourself a cup of tea as we travel back in time for a few billion years!
We’ve arrived at a time on Earth when single-celled organisms have been in our oceans for a long time, but the land is still a rocky mass – with no life. Around this time, bacteria were developing the ability to use the sun for photosynthesis, converting sunlight into nutrients.
The by-product of photosynthesis is oxygen, which the bacteria release into the atmosphere, allowing more complex life to form. This is known as the “Cambrian Explosion”.
Now, let’s take a quick jump forward Sixty million years. More complex life forms have now developed on land in the shape of fungi. They have the unique ability to eat rock! OK, to say Fungi could ‘eat’ rock may have been a slight exaggeration; what the fungi did, was secrete a digestive enzyme that gave them access to the nutrients in the rock, nutrients not available to any other organism at that time.
Before this, Fungi fed on the build-up of bacteria on the seashore for millions of years as there was nothing else to eat on the land.
Over time, the oxygen released by Mycelium encouraged the development of other life forms. Plants began to grow and photosynthesise energy from the sun.
Small plants, such as Liverworts, established themselves but needed nutrients and minerals to spread. Mycelium needed energy, so both had access to the needs of the other.
So nature’s first mutually beneficial partnership began. Today we call this symbiosis. Nature works symbiotically, in natural harmony. As plants died, the fungi decomposed the dead plant material into nutrients and returned those nutrients to other plants.
Plants provided the Mycelium underground with the energy they had photo synthesised from the sun. As more plant species grew, they released more oxygen into the atmosphere. This symbiosis continues today.
Mycorrhizal networks continue to evolve, with Scientists claiming that these networks benefit up to 90% of plant growth in the modern world.
OK, so let’s get back to 2022. Plants and fungi have shared a long-term symbiotic relationship that’s been so successful that plants and fungi have colonised every area of the world.
Scientists have found them in Antarctica. Mycorrhizal networks have even been discovered at Chornobyl and Hiroshima, having survived nuclear explosions.
I first heard of Mychorrizal networks as a child. One day, while walking in my local woodland, I saw a young sapling shaded by many other, much larger trees.
How can that young sapling grow enough to become a big tree and keep the woodland growing into the future? What I didn’t understand then led me on a journey of discovery and a passion for living in harmony with the natural world.
As I discovered more about nature, I learnt about fungi’s mycorrhizal network and how it feeds the smaller trees with the nutrients they need and keeps supporting them until they are strong enough to survive and become the future of that woodland. For me, nurturing and care which helps every living thing grow and be part of a symbiotic and diverse ecosystem, is a way of living we humans should emulate.
Today, Mycorrhizal networks are everywhere, not just in woodlands and gardens. Mycorrhizal networks also act as communication networks, sending signals to trees and plants that warn of potential dangers in pests and disease.
The Mycorrhizal networks pass on chemicals that deter or hinder the growth of competing plants by depriving them of nutrients. Mycelium is a cornerstone of our ecosystem, forging relationships with other organisms, including humans.
It’s an important food source for us, providing us with vegetables, fruit and the yeast we need for bread; it’s used in many medicines, agriculture and as a leather substitute in vegan-friendly clothing.
Mycelia reproduction happens when a spore germinates to form a type known as homokaryotic mycelia. When two monokaryons come in contact with each other, and if conditions are right, the hyphal walls break open in a process known as hyphal anastomoses.
This allows the nuclei of one monokaryon to move into the mycelia of the other. As the Mycelium continues growing and spreading inside or on the surface of the substrate, it absorbs nutrients that are then transported to support the reproduction in the fruiting bodies that we call mushrooms.
Mushrooms, like plants, need external stimuli to develop. However, Mycelium grows in ever-expanding circles under the soil. As the mycelia deplete the nutrients in the inner part of the circle, they die, leaving an empty central area, whilst the younger mycelia continue to develop a never-ending cycle of new rings.
Mycelia release different enzymes in their environment to break down materials into simpler forms they can absorb easily. For example, complex sugars and proteins are broken down into their primary forms, glucose and amino acids.
Mycelia will naturally grow towards water or areas with high moisture concentration to absorb the water they need for sustained development. In this way, Mycelium can spread anywhere there is soil with sufficient nutrients to support its continued growth.
Mycelium in the Ecosystem
Fungi play a vital role in our ecosystems. This is because of their ability to recycle nutrients through decomposition and make them available to other plants.
Many species of Fungi do their work in different ways. Most can be classified into one of three groups; parasitic, saprophytic, or mycorrhizal.
As the name implies, parasitic fungi require a living host to consume. This can lead to the eventual death of the plant or tree. Saprophytic fungi live on dead organic matter. They recycle nutrients through decomposition. Some fungi can be both parasitic and saprophytic. The cultivated mushrooms you find in supermarkets are saprophytic species.
For me, though, it’s the mycorrhizal fungi that demonstrate the Magic of Mycelium. Mycorrhizae in Latin means; “myco”-fungi and “rhiza”-root. This relates roughly to “Fungus root”, a description that dates back to the 19th century.
Mycelium in the modern world: Climate Change
Can Mycelium help save the planet from the modern world? Well, yes, it can.
Mycelium is a carbon storage facility and will reinvest the carbon into plants. This relationship is so prevalent that scientists believe 92% of all plants form a mycorrhizal relationship in the soil.
Woodlands are one way of offsetting carbon from the climate as they act as natural carbon sinks.
Britain was once a gigantic forest. Now, tragically, we have the least woodland cover in Europe. This will be a massive factor in how we can deal with climate change in the future. The UK government has already stated that we need to double our woodland areas to be carbon-zero by 2050.
Mycelium and people Our relationship with Mycelium
Mycorrhizal networks play a vital role; life as we know it would not be possible without Mycelium networks.
We utilise Mycelium to develop higher growth rates in cereal crops, vegetables and fruit, to enable seeds of plants to germinate faster and more reliably, and also for those seeds to be stronger and more resistant to pests and diseases.
As well as providing reliable, vital crops that do not need fertilisers and spraying with chemicals, the use of mycorrhizal fungi in the soil improves the transfer of water, the trapping of carbon and nitrogen that helps to reduce the build-up and impact of climate change on our planet.
With so many species of fungi still to be discovered, the possibilities of Mycelium and its natural networks and symbiotic relations to benefit the natural world our natural world these tiny, fibrous lifeforms can be found in your garden but have survived for billions of years, even though nuclear explosions, must indeed have a crucial role to play in the future of our planet.
So next time you walk in your local woodland or park and see some mushrooms, stop and appreciate these incredible gifts of nature. Mushrooms are Magic.
Further Reading
Mycelium: Exploring the hidden dimension of fungi by Eddie Johnston and Grace Brewer for Royal Botanical Gardens Kew
10 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE MYCELIAL NETWORK by Fantastic Fungi
The Mycelial Network Is the Wood Wide Web Underneath It All by Shroomer.com
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